Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The 25th Anniversary #1 is an anthology one-shot published by BOOM! Studios. True to its name, the anthology contains a number of stories centred on the titular Slayer and her friends, with a number of creators delivering the same mix of humor and horror which made the television series a staple of pop culture. It also teases a number of future series, which contains BOOM!’s expansion of the Buffy franchise following series like Buffy: the Last Vampire Slayer.

In the pilot episode of Firefly, Captain Malcolm Reynolds made it clear he and the crew of the Serenity traffic in all but one thing: people. Now in the sequel series set twenty years later, Firefly: Brand New Verse, the next crew has inadvertently broken this golden rule. Nobody tell Mal.

Until now, the Scooby Gang never thought that the greatest force they’d have to face came from their own ranks. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer #24, the Gang takes on a darkness out of their control. This issue is written and illustrated by long-time contributes Jeremy Lambert and Ramon Bachs, respectively. Also returning are colorist Raul Angulo and letterer Ed Dukeshire.

Twenty years have passed since the events of Serenity shifted the Firefly universe into a new direction. But it turns out that the timeline hasn’t changed all that much. In that time, Zöe Alleyne Washburne has taken command of the titular Serenity ship.

“Set 20 years after the events of Firefly, Serenity soars the ‘Verse once again with a new captain – Emma, the daughter of Wash and Zöe! The old crew of Serenity has gone their own way and now Emma is working to prove herself to Zoe. alongside a new crew of castaways and misfits just trying to stay afloat. But when Serenity takes a job from a familiar face, they discover their new, living, breathing cargo is far more than they bargained for… and might bring them into conflict with Alliance once again!”

Boom! Studios returns to the world of Firefly in a brand new limited series, Firefly: Brand New Verse, and a fresh preview spotlights new characters.

The Ring of Fire arc has turned multiple friends into foes. Anya, the former Watcher, continues her secret plot against the Watcher Council. Meanwhile, Xander’s a vampire hell-bent on trapping Willow with him. Now, through the magic of a mysterious gift from issue #20, Willow has been taken over by an eerie sort of doppelganger.

Dark Willow was one of the biggest twists in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Willow spent seasons of the original series learning about magic and perfecting spell-crafting in her own right. But by Season 6, her ambitions and appetite for magic had grown to a dangerous level.

I want to be honest here. Although I do enjoy Boom! Studios Buffy-verse which has excelled with titles such as Angel & Spike. Willow and even the recent Faith revival, the titular book continues to fall short of what it tries to offer us.

This first issue takes place at multiple points of Faith’s life. Mostly based around a movie theatre, we see different parts of her story told in sequence. From her admittance into a children’s home, through to early training and modern-day, Faith Lehane is trying it piece together her life, practically chiseled into becoming a slayer. Multiple vampires are slain and unknown mysteries of her history begin to unravel.